Men without Gods
by fiesa
Summary: Ronin doesn't believe in a god. Drabble- Ronin, Tara.


**Men without Gods**

_Summary: Ronin doesn't believe in a god. Drabble- Ronin, Tara. _

_Warning: Drabble. Branches off into weird religious themes. Hopefully comes back to the point._

_Set: No specific timeline. Before the movie, I guess. _

_Disclaimer: Standards apply._

* * *

The forest is a world of its own.

For Ronin, who never knew any other place, it is world; home and heart. Lush green; soft colors. Wind in the trees. Rain pattering unto the roof of the oldest trees, snow covering the cold ground until it is time for life to awaken again. This is his world: here, he lives and breathes. Everything around him is alive, and Tara is life.

She is beautiful.

No matter where and how, she always manages to draw in glances. She is the kind of person that feels drawn to others, and others are drawn to her. She is like spring after winter, chasing away clouds of worry and sorrow, warming frozen hearts, coloring grey lives red and golden and violet. Her favorite flowers are tulips, the first flowers to poke their small heads through the last patches of snow to greet the world. Her favorite color is silver: the light of both sun and moon on the water of the lake, and the rushing bubbles of the stream. Her favorite time is dawn, when the rest of the world still is asleep and the forest awakens slowly. And her smile is so brilliant it encompasses the world around her. There is nobody who does not love her.

"Let us give thanks!"

The Queen lifts her hands towards the rising sun, clear water dripping from her slim, dark-skinned fingers and running down her bare arms. Every droplet glistens in the rising sun, jewels as natural as amber and all the more precious for their ephemeral character. The jinn around her join in the ancient words, a soft murmur, steady and rumbling. Wind in the trees, light patterns of sun behind the leaves. Tara closes her eyes and lowers her head, remains like that for a few seconds. Around her, her people do the same. Somewhere in the background a baby wails and calms again. The wind picks up like she has called on it, chases away the last stormy clouds: the rising sun reaches Tara's face and Ronin wants to avert his glance but it is impossible. A new day begins in the forest.

Before he became The Commander, Ronin was a simple Leafman.

He still likes to remember those days, and he does so by taking up the same duties any Leafman has. He gets up early and joins his soldiers in the morning training. He has a quick breakfast and then helps to clean the headquarters and the bird houses; he carries water and wood, polishes his sword and armor and spars with his soldiers. On those days it feels like he is young and eager again but time never moves backwards. "Commander!" A Leafman calls out, "News from the northern border!" And Ronin is The Commander again, Leader of the Leafmen, Knight to Her Highness, Queen Tara.

"In the beginning, there was light. And the light was with God, and God was light."

"Your Highness?"

"Yes, sweetie?"

"How does God look like?"

"Hmmm. I think that depends on the person who is looking at him. For me, he is like sunlight in water. What do you think he looks like?"

Children have a vivid imagination. Ronin never wondered about this before. Does it mean he never was a child? Or just that he never believed? He has grown up with those same stories. His grandmother had told him of His wonders and glory and yet Ronin never saw a sign that there was a greater being in the world, controlling humans' and jinns' fates. Maybe he just doesn't like the concept of his life not being his own, his decisions not being his to make. Maybe he just doesn't want to believe in something he can't see.

"You're so practical it's unpractical, Ronin," Tara complains and laughs her sweet laughter and he thinks he does not even mind being laughed at by her when she looks so pretty while doing it. There is the girl he knew in the face of the woman he sees, two faces overlapping. Tara's kindness shines from her eyes. Sometimes, he wonders.

"So how did God created both the Stompers and the Jinn, such different species?"

"Maybe he didn't create them per se. Maybe he just planted the seed for a development, and it took a few millions of years to develop into Stompers and Jinn."

"If there is a God, why does he allow the Boggins to kill us?"

Difficult, really, really difficult, especially when Nod looks at him with those huge, tearless eyes. _Those eyes he got from his father._ It is as if his friend is staring at him accusingly through the eyes of his son: You let me die. A child, barely a few winters old, and already he has voiced the thought Ronin has been carrying with him since he entered the Leafmen brigade a few winters ago. Why, oh, why do people kill and die, why are people left behind, why all this pain and sadness? He has no answer.

"Because he loves us enough to let us make our own decisions, and those include war and killing, and thus, sadly, death, love."

Tara always has an answer. Sometimes, he hates her for it.

The forest all around him is alive with sounds, colors and scents. It is his world.

"Isn't it beautiful?" Tara asks. Her voice is soft, almost a whisper. Ronin nods his consent, but he isn't looking at the forest.

Ronin never believed in God. But he has seen wonder in the way the flowers bloom again after winter, in the sparkling waters of the lake or the animals all around him. It is so _strong, _so _real. _So incredibly, incredibly beautiful. Ronin has felt someone guide his hand invisibly, or help him reach a decision by softy influencing his heart. He has been drawn to something _more_, something invisible, and he always knew there was something in his life he couldn't grasp even though it was just _there. _So, so close. The voice he hears when he doubts is sweet and full of laughter, reprimanding and sometimes even lovingly mocking.

Ronin does not believe in God. The only Goddess he knows is Tara.


End file.
